P
Prestwick
Guest
Let us be blunt here, having a relegation/promotion idea just wouldn't work. You'll end up with a huge blow to an established player (especially the likes of Scotland whose Rugby lies on a rather frightening precipice right now over oblivion) and a huge embarrassment towards the new nation who gets promoted.
In terms of developing smaller nations, you simply cannot rush these things. You can't just chuck the likes of Spain, Germany or Romania into the Six Nations when the sport itself hardly makes the headlines of the local newspaper as it is. Coming in one year and crashing out to heavy 100 - 0 defeats the next, what good does that do apart from humiliate and demoralise the team?
No, in order to get nations like Spain, Russia, Portugal, Germany, etc into top flight NH competition, you need to gradually embrace them. Their players need to play in France, Italy, England and the ML, the teams need to play more summer warm ups against teams from the ML, GP and the T14 and if they do get a shot at the Six Nations, it must be consistent, not on a promotion/relegation basis.
Italy got to where they are today because they knew that they were not going anywhere even if they received the wooden spoon year on year on year. To achieve proper development, you need consistency. Having a crappy promotion/relegation system just defeats the purpose of development and it annoys the hell out of everyone.
Which leads me onto my next point. Expand it beyond six nations, and you'll have to start looking at dropping the idea of holding it every year. Maybe a seven or eight nations would be better suited as an event held once every two years instead of an every year event.
In terms of developing smaller nations, you simply cannot rush these things. You can't just chuck the likes of Spain, Germany or Romania into the Six Nations when the sport itself hardly makes the headlines of the local newspaper as it is. Coming in one year and crashing out to heavy 100 - 0 defeats the next, what good does that do apart from humiliate and demoralise the team?
No, in order to get nations like Spain, Russia, Portugal, Germany, etc into top flight NH competition, you need to gradually embrace them. Their players need to play in France, Italy, England and the ML, the teams need to play more summer warm ups against teams from the ML, GP and the T14 and if they do get a shot at the Six Nations, it must be consistent, not on a promotion/relegation basis.
Italy got to where they are today because they knew that they were not going anywhere even if they received the wooden spoon year on year on year. To achieve proper development, you need consistency. Having a crappy promotion/relegation system just defeats the purpose of development and it annoys the hell out of everyone.
Which leads me onto my next point. Expand it beyond six nations, and you'll have to start looking at dropping the idea of holding it every year. Maybe a seven or eight nations would be better suited as an event held once every two years instead of an every year event.
